High school students need more one-on-one mentoring to help them get into career tracks earlier. The region’s economy needs a more robust workforce. A new initiative to be launched Tuesday will try to meet both needs.

NaviGo Scholars is a partnership between education professionals and the region’s business community, one that its creators hope gives students a leg up in the world while also strengthening the region’s workforce.

Over the next year, 33 students at 14 high schools across Greater Cincinnati, including Northern Kentucky, will receive one-on-one career coaching to help them identify their strengths and weaknesses, choose a career track and take the right classes to make it happen.

They’ll also receive mentoring from professionals at some of the region’s top employers, who are underwriting the $1,400-per-student cost of the program.

It represents a major investment not only in the lives of each scholar, but in the future of the region’s workforce.

The Northern Kentucky Education Council is overseeing the program with support from Toyota, Duke Energy, Citi, the Bank of Kentucky and Heritage Bank.

“We can really change the outcome for these youth and their families – this is very important and exciting for us,” said Polly Lusk Page, the council’s executive director.

The program is the brainchild of Tim Hanner, who retired in 2011 as superintendent of Kenton County Schools. His education services company, NaviGo College and Career Prep Services, designed the curriculum and selected and trained the career coaches with input from counseling experts at Northern Kentucky University.

Hanner said career readiness was an issue even before he retired. Students often told him they and their peers felt like high school didn’t adequately prepare them for life beyond graduation.

“High school should be as much about students finding out what they don’t want to do as what they do want to do,” he said. “And unfortunately, there are too many students just doing high school and not understanding how the classes they’re taking and the research they’re doing relates to life beyond high school.”

With NaviGo Scholars, the hope is that students will identify a field of interest and pursue it before they leave high school. The coaches will help the students and their families choose the right classes to prepare them for that career, and even help them apply and find ways to pay for college and other postsecondary education.

It’s designed to complement, not replace, existing services such as statewide career and college readiness programs and school counselors.

The NaviGo Scholars are not required to choose any specific field. “It’s about first, finding the interests, the passions, the talents of the student,” Hanner said.

But the five corporate partners are hoping that some of them choose careers such as advanced manufacturing, engineering or skilled trades, all areas where our region’s workforce needs a major boost.

The corporate partners chose the 33 scholars from a pool of 100 applicants. Some of them, like Toyota and Duke, chose students with an interest or aptitude in engineering, manufacturing or trades. Citi, Bank of Kentucky and Heritage, meanwhile, picked students with other interests.

For Toyota, NaviGo Scholars could become a way to grow the employees of the future. The company is already invested in early childhood development and postsecondary internships and scholarships, but hasn’t yet been able to reach students when they first start thinking about careers.

“It’s an investment in the future of the company. It’s a recruiting tool like we’ve never had before,” said Helen Carroll, manager of community relations at Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America in Erlanger.

In addition to a financial commitment, Toyota and the other corporate partners are providing career coaches, or in-house professionals who will give each scholar advice and input.

On July 30, the scholars and their families will gather at Thomas More College to meet one another and their coaches. Organizers hope the group will bond and return next summer for the second year of the program, ready to mentor the next class of incoming students.

The Northern Kentucky Education Council will compile data from this year’s inaugural round to measure its success, and organizers hope to use that data to attract more corporate partners and grow the program in future years. ⬛